


Things That Shouldn't Have Been

by MaiKusakabe



Series: Life as a Whitebeard Pirate [3]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Angst, Gen, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-26
Updated: 2015-01-26
Packaged: 2018-03-09 04:11:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3235778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaiKusakabe/pseuds/MaiKusakabe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nobody had seen it coming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things That Shouldn't Have Been

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I am not following the original posting order, but these stories are independent, so it doesn't matter. Originally, I posted almost all the angst together, and I've decided I'll space it now.
> 
> This was beta read by Aerle :)

The door closed with a barely audible click that resounded like thunder in the unnaturally still silence that filled every corner of the ship and his hand fell limply from the door handle.

The room was dark, they had closed the porthole and drawn the rarely used curtain over it. With the already setting sun, there was only a dim light that cast grey, long and gloomy shadows over the room. They didn’t even begin to reflect the feelings now consuming Marco from the inside.

There, on the bed, lay Thatch, eyes closed and a peaceful expression on his face Marco had said many times before. If he hadn’t known better, he would have thought the man was asleep, but he knew only too well the fatal would that lay below the sheet now covering the man up to his shoulders. That expression had always seemed strange to Marco, such a peaceful look didn’t fit a man as lively and playful as Thatch. Now, however, it was downright mocking.

Marco advanced to the bed, each step heavier than the previous one as he made his legs take it. He would have let himself drop onto the mattress had he been alone, but the blond man forced himself to sit down as carefully as possible.

He stared at his feet for what could have been hours before finally raising his head and turning to look at Thatch. He really hated that peaceful expression. It just wasn’t Thatch. At all.

“What happened?” He spoke, and irrationally hoped for an answer that couldn’t come. “How did he get you? You’re-you’re one of the strongest, even if you didn’t see it coming…” He trailed off, turned away from Thatch’s unnervingly unresponsive face and instead buried his own in his hands. “Thatch, fuck…”

He fell silent, and would have heard the minutes tick by if they hadn’t turned off the clock the fourth division commander had hated so much. Marco had bought it five years ago, and he would unfailingly set the alarm at an outrageous hour and hide it somewhere the man wouldn’t think of whenever Thatch slacked in his duties. The only reason the other commander hadn’t broken it was because the blond would consistently replace it and take the amount it had cost away from Thatch’s money for the next island they visited.

“…What happened?” Marco repeated. “Things were going so well. We were happy, weren’t we? For the last few years we’ve-“ He cut himself off, because he couldn’t think of those memories without the pain taking over. He couldn’t break now, not when most of the crew was so close to doing so.

“Ace has left, you know? He says he’s going to kill that bastard to avenge you.” He swallowed. “Pops said we shouldn’t follow him, that he has a bad feeling about all this. If it wasn’t for that, I would be out there with Ace right now, but… I don’t know, I have a bad feeling, too.”

Marco tried to imagine Thatch mocking him for saying something so vague, for letting such an unidentifiable feeling of which he couldn’t track back the origin have so much power over him, but a heavy knot settled in his throat at the very effort of trying to remember Thatch’s laughter.

And he couldn’t remember it.

He choked.

“…Why didn’t any of us see this coming?”

An unbidden tear slid down his cheek.


End file.
